In the past, departments had to submit proposals for new courses and course changes on forms that were filled out with typewriters. Beginning in Fall 2010, such proposals will be submitted electronically through a new system entitled CARMIn (Course Approval, Remonstrance, Maintenance and Integration). For information regarding how to initiate or approve a course request, please see the job aids available on the Student Enrollment Services website.

When a member of a department initiates a New Course or a Course Change document via CARMIn, the electronic document is automatically routed to the next person in the approval chain, who is either the Chair or the Director of the department. They can either approve the request or send it back—with comments—to the initiator. Once they approve a request, it is then routed to the Curriculum Committee of the College/School (if available), from there to the Deans of the respective academic units and then on to the Survey and Curriculum Committee for the campus.

From the Campus Survey and Curriculum Committee, course requests are placed on a central university remonstrance list so that other units and compuses have an opportunity to review them for a 30-day remonstarnce period.

On the first workday of each month from a centralized location, a remonstrance list will be distributed which includes all courses that have recently been submitted through CARMIn. The reason for sending out a remonstrance list is to inform faculty of proposed curricular changes and to give them the opportunity to voice concerns.

Any faculty member or department can file an objection to a proposed course/course revision within a strictly-enforced 30-day remonstrance period. Reasons for filing a remonstrance include concerns about the content or quality of instruction of the course and conflicts with existing courses. In the event that a remonstrance is filed, the two parties are expected to correspond in a good-faith effort to address and resolve these issues. What remonstrance does is to stop the proposed course/course revision in question until both the proposing and remonstrating parties are satisfied, or until the latter accepts the proposed (or a revised) course. In other words, the status quo is maintained unless all parties accede to the new/revised course.

Please direct all correspondence related to the filing and resolution of a remonstrance to Cynthia O'Dell (codell@iun.edu).